While an audience does feel, in a sense ‘inverted’ into the “American Shot” movie-clips, there is an enormous buffer – technology.  The characters are not entirely human. As Belgian painter, René Magritte would say, “ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“this is not a pipe,” meaning it is but a picture of a pipe). What is seen on screen in “American Shot” is only a picture of a person.  Technology provides society with ways to make the fictional seem more real. Gadgets such as the Christie Digital screens used in “American Shot” capture footage, while the programs used to edit the material create scope, so that viewers see only what they are told to see.  This movie-slip demonstrates mimesis, an imitation of reality that is becoming more and more ‘real’ as technology advances.

A viewer’s encounter with “American Shot” is interactive but it is also highly mediated by technology.  One cannot reach out and feel the warmth of another body, nor the cinematic sun on one’s skin; the experience of the characters in the film is, thus, drastically different from that of the viewer.  Instead, the viewer imagines himelf or herself in the story.  While not playing a film, the screen appears like a mirror. Initially passers by might take a peak at themselves, touch up a hairdo, or tuck in a shirt, but then a film plays and, caught off guard, one wonders who noticed them, who saw that imperfection?  Stefanescu writes that, “mirrors have a way of underlying the idea of [the] present, of ‘now.’”

Film is an incredible art form in that it has the ability to convey such an array of ideas and images, and to conjure up a variety of emotions in viewers without any kind of physical interaction with those viewers.  Digital rendering allows the creators of film to take the physicality out of rendering. The videographer, Klaus Engel, is not in the scene, he is behind the camera lens.  However, used subversively in the case of “American Shot,” the digital rendering of film allows participants to explore the physicality inherent in interactions between the real world and the digital (as exemplified in virtual reality systems).  The clean digital realm becomes capable of relating to the fleshiness of existence.  As an audience, we accept the production submitted for our viewing as real; we know it is ‘fake’ because it is acting, but it is real because at some point in time the actions occurred.

In death we are only alive inasmuch as we are remembered.  The identity we leave with people is created through interactions with others and how we have been viewed and judged; that identity does not consist of who we believe ourselves to have been, but, instead, is subject to another human’s perception.  Likewise, “American Shot” asks individuals to reflect on how they view others, how they create identities for fictional characters.  Film allows a moment in time to be captured, reviewed and reinterpreted. An outsider does not know if the actors in film are alive or dead, they exist within a finite moment and the identity they inhabit in that moment is everlasting in the mind of a viewer.  Stefanescu writes that “cinematic images are much more like ghosts than still photos.”

Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, stated that by putting one’s image ‘out there’ one’s existence is validated.  What does it mean to be valid?  Or, does the presence of technology, such as video, aid in buffering us from the reality that life inevitably leads to death?  Perhaps our existence after death is merely a result of technology. Instead of relying only on others to continue our legacy by nostalgically recalling their personal experiences, we as individuals can create and mold a lasting impression of ourselves using technological devices.  We create images and personas that represent who we are that have the ability to endure our mortal bodies.  As users of technology, we decide what pictures to upload on Facebook, we choose what to wear when we’re filmed, we create online personalities that display our likes and dislikes, we write our opinions, and we format everything to better convey our overall character.  Yet, “American Shot” takes away this element of control; we are caught off-guard, unprepared for film; we are given no time to create change in ourselves, but are seen as we are and feel naked.  The rhetorical constructs of technology allow one to feel completely exposed, while at the same time, completely in control.  The one control that viewers do possess in “American Shot” is control over their bodies; as viewers stand on the street, they have the option of walking away.

Interestingly, the development of the steadicam originates from the framing support used by the military for machine-gun operation while a soldier is walking.  Likewise, the first telephone was named “Gallows phone”, the first video camera was called the “chronophotographic rifle”, and the first full body ultrasound was held in the tunnel of a B29 bomber.  Although I would argue that “American Shot” is not intended to be violent, there is something unsettling about the direction and focus of the camera lens.  The Western Shot in and of itself alludes to future violence given that its purpose is to scan the body of a character from the waist up as a weapons assessment.  This can be found in many Western movies throughout history.

Similarly, when an individual is the subject of the camera lens there is often a sense of threat. Oftentimes, the subject will try to put a hand over the lens or cover their face.  Stefanescu refers to the opening sequence of “American Shot” as “the framing of the viewer as the trigger.”  One stands in front of the screen and activates a camera that ‘boxes in’ your face before playing a movie clip.  However, viewers need not shield themselves. They can simply walk away, watch for only a moment, or walk away and then turn around; the film continues to roll even without an audience.

“American Shot,” created by Isabella Stefanescu, Carlito Ghioni and Klaus Engel was installed facing King Street in downtown Kitchener as part of CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum for Kitchener and Area).  Two small cameras are installed on the screen for “American Shot” that film in live time the movement on the street, cars passing by, people walking, the streetlights flashing, etc.  The images on the screen are forever changing with the motions of the environment.  When someone approaches the screen, the cameras identify the face of the viewer and frame the head in a red box.  The screen then goes to black before a short movie clip begins to play. The film is a tableau with no dialogue, and a storyline and characters that are left open to interpretation.

The viewers become engaged in their own umwelt, a term biologist, Jakob van Uexküll (1864-1944), established to mean one’s ‘self-world.’  In the case of “American Shot,” the umwelt, or personal bubble involves the viewer’s body and the screen, an engagement meant to spark reflection upon their own perceptions of their life-world.  The framing narrative embodies the viewer both physically and mentally.  The movie clips begin and end with a picture of the viewer and the red frame around the face indicates a bodied interaction while throughout the clip the viewer is used as interpreter.  On one hand, this leads to feelings of specialness; after all, only a face can begin the clip, not a lamppost or a car.  On the other hand, you as yourself, having started the clip are not so special as a unique individual.  Your body is expendable, your face expendable, in fact, almost everything we do as human beings is expendable in one way or another.  No, it is only your physicality within that particular environment that has enabled you to feel, even momentarily, special.

CAFKA 2009 is not the first time Stefanescu has joined up with Carlito Ghioni and Klaus Engel. In 2007/2008 they created “Transport”, an exhibition similar to “American Shot” but hosted around public transportation in Toronto. The motivation behind “Transport” is described as stories that “tell of encounters on subways, streetcars or buses, aiming to make public transport romantic and to give it a grunge glamour: the interesting life does not happen in your car – life happens in public transport, where you see people, hear people and meet people.”  Likewise, “American Shot” is not a personal encounter with art; it is communal and introspective.  For more information on Stefanescu visit her website at: http://www.isabella-stefanescu.com.

In an email interview with Stefanescu she writes, “The public scale and setting [of “American Shot”] influences the way we perceive and receive a story.”  Just like at home, one feels awkward while watching a love scene with an elderly relative, or a child.  In the case of interactive public art and “American Shot,” it is not only a matter of who else is watching the screen but also who is watching the audience.  While we watch movie clips of people on-screen, people observe us watching.  Likewise, the audience is looking at the screen alone and, in the process, closes off the activity around them, hence leading to feelings of unease.  In a sense, through the combination of environment and cinema, the viewer faces part of their own identity by reflecting upon how they watch the performances of others.  Perhaps, standing on a downtown sidewalk is a performance. “American Shot” begs the question:  What other ways do we, as both audience and actor, perform in our everyday lives, and who is watching us?

The photograph above portrays Jihee Min’s performance piece “Once Upon Camellia Blossoms” (2008). According to the artist’s website, the purpose of the work is “to raise the awareness of the growing tendency to fetishize Asian females in the North American media.” In order to do so, the “artist was on display with [a] 25-meter long fabric wig and 104 exaggerated silky camellia blossoms. Viewers were invited to fold origami flowers after the pattern on the wall. Folding papers were provided with images of commercials on which sexualized Asian females are apparent.”

In this piece, Min engages with issues of cultural appropriation and the commercialization of foreign cultures by North American society.  The notion of the Asian fetish is used as a vehicle to expose and criticize cultural stereotyping. Similar to the themes explored by the confidence helmet, “Once Upon Camellia Blossoms” examines how identification with another culture obstructs integration into Canadian society.

In another performance piece entitled “I scream Minjihee” (2006), the artist walked through downtown Montreal with an ice cream cart. She distributed ice cream bars, on which her name in Korean was written in cocoa powder, while yelling “I scream Minjihee” to passers by. As in her other works, Min “aims to generate tension between herself as an objectified artist and the viewers in the space, creating a site for critical awareness. “ Min positions her body within her artwork as a site for thinking about physical appearance or cultural difference and its opposition to internal difference, which cannot be contained by society’s unrealistic stereotypes. In this way, her art can be compared to Stelarc’s positioning of his own body in his performance pieces.

According to his website, Stelarc identifies himself as “an Australian-based performance artist whose work explores and extends the concept of the body and its relationship with technology through human-machine interfaces.” While “I is for Confidence” does not extend the body technologically, the confidence helmet does examine bodily extensions that are invisible to the human eye, but nevertheless exist in the world. The use of the prosthesis in art presents a reproduction that is not necessarily a copy, yet presumably functions in some way like the original. In Min’s piece, confidence is prostheticized as something external to the body, while in Stelarc’s pieces, technological prostheses enhance and extend the human body. In both cases, viewers are forced to think about physicality and embodiment. The artists use their bodies in performance to question how human beings perceive their physical existence.

In Amelia Jones’ article “Stelarc’s Technological Transcendence/Stelarc’s Wet Body,” Jones discusses how Stelarc’s attempts at revealing the obsolescence of the body fail because they instead force viewers to think more deeply about their corporeal existence. She specifically takes exception to Stelarc’s use of his own body as the subject of his art; according to Jones, this inescapably places the focus of the piece on his materiality, rather than his disembodiment. As she explains, “If the body were truly obsolete, what would be the point of suspending it and prodding, invading, extending, and manipulating it with technology? If it were a dull object–irrelevant to consciousness, thought, cognition–then manipulating it would have no effect whatsoever on understanding” (94). Instead, precisely because it is a subject, and not just an object, art that manipulates the body further grounds the artist in that body.

In “I is for Confidence,” the physical manifestation of confidence worn by the participant prompts wearers to experience confidence as something physical. In a sense, this exposes the quality of confidence to be, in fact, more physical than we may think. Rather than an abstract entity, confidence can be highly grounded in the material world. Not only can it be influenced by our self-perception of our own bodily appearance, it can also seem to carry a physical weight. Min portrays this idea by translating the emotional weight of confidence (or a lack thereof) to expose how confidence and self-esteem have tangible sources, effects, and implications in the material world.

Jones, Amelia. “Stelarc’s Technological Transcendence/Stelarc’s Wet Body.” Stelarc: The Monograph. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. 87-123.

While confidence and self-esteem may be defined differently–confidence as a belief in one’s abilities, and self-esteem as a feeling of self-worth–they are closely related in the sense that one reflects directly on the other. Self-confidence is perhaps the primary force behind self-esteem, since belief in oneself and one’s abilities is a necessary factor in achieving a sense of self-worth. As such, I will use confidence and self-esteem interchangeably to refer to the themes Min is exploring.

Min’s commentary in relation to Becker’s theory of self-esteem is especially telling when she explains that her idea behind the design of the confidence helmet was to inspire in wearers a sense of their own (“super”)heroism. According to Min, the piece is analagous to a superhero outfit; “by letting the audience try it on, I wanted to make them feel like a superhero… Like they can do anything.” Min hits on an important observation about human nature in contemporary society, that being the need to feel capable of achieving one’s goals–to feel that those goals are important and to feel that one’s contrbutions are valuable; overall, to conceive of oneself as indispensible.

While the piece “I is for Confidence” forces us to think more critically about our own perceptions of confidence, Min’s commentary provides an interesting angle that also relates closely to Becker’s theory of death denial. Min’s experience as a child in Canada was that of a foreigner entering an unknown culture, and the expression of the implications of this experience was her impetus behind creating the piece. To assimilate into the cultural hero system(s) present in Canadian society, Min felt required to adopt the norms of that society; only by aligning herself with the values of that hero system could she see herself as a person of value within that system. In fact, much of her work focuses on the struggle between consolidating an identity in North American society, while at the same time retaining a connection to her Korean culture.

“I is for Confidence” (2007) http://jiheemin.com/work/work.html

Becker’s The Denial of Death argues that ever since humans have been aware of their own mortality, they have repressed their fear of death out of necessity. Citing Zilboorg, Becker suggests that if our fear of death was constantly present, we would be unable to function.This repression of death anxiety to allow for day-to-day functioning ultimately leads to the complete opposite of mortality awareness, that being  a total denial of mortality. Against the backdrop of this repressed anxiety, we are told from the time we are children that we are all special, that we have unique characters. As Becker explains, “When you combine natural narcissism with the basic need for self-esteem, you create a creature who has to feel himself an object of primary value: first in the universe, representing in himself all of life” (3). According to Becker, this is how each of us feels subconsciously each day. Out of this will to believe that we are people of value, humanity creates cultural hero systems; while the codes may vary, these systems exist across all cultures and religions (see this excerpt from Becker’s introduction to The Denial of Death). In essence, culture, and the hero systems it contains, are a “causa-sui” or immortality project hinged on a collective goal by human beings to be a part of something that will last forever. Cultural immortality ideology, as Becker phrases it, ultimately allows us to deny the inevitability of death.

Out of Becker’s theories on death denial comes an approach to human psychology known as terror management theory, which studies the emotional reactions people experience when forced to think about the possibility of their own death.Within this theoretical approach is an explanation for how human beings cope with anxiety, which constructs self-esteem as a buffer that insulates humans from anxiety related to the inevitability of death. This anxiety-buffer hypothesis can help to explain society’s emphasis on the need to develop self-esteem. The more we are made to feel like valuable members of society in a culture of meaning, the less likely we are to succumb to death anxiety, and the more likely we are able to repress this fact of human existence.

“It doesn’t matter whether the cultural hero system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive, or secular, scientific, and civilized. It is still a mythical hero system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakeable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning and that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count” (5).

Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1973.

“I is for Confidence” (2007) http://jiheemin.com/work/work.html

According to Jihee Min, the piece “I is for Confidence” is an exploration of her own self-professed lack of confidence. The performative nature of the piece is an attempt to overcome the shyness and timidity that she believes derives from her self-identification with the “other” in North American society. As Min suggests in the video, the culture shock and language barriers she experienced at a young age resulted in a huge decrease in her confidence–something she claimed to possess prior to the social and cultural trauma experienced upon entry into North American society.

The way in which Min frames the abstract entity of confidence–through her depiction of this quality in her art, as well as the language she uses to describe it–grounds it in reality as somewhat of a physical object. It is something heavy, something that the artist drags around, something that you can have attached to you, and something that you can lose. As Min explains, this work is a way for her to visualize, by putting into concrete form, a personal quality or outlook on life that she finds elusive, difficult to develop, and hard to hold onto.

Though some of the forces that work against confidence are extremely apparent in daily life, such as advertising campaigns projecting an ideal body image or rejection by one’s peers, confidence is internal–a state of mind, or perspective on life, or ability to internalize self-worth–and, as such, extremely intangible. Sometimes we may think we have confidence, when in fact, our ability to act is prescribed or sabotaged daily by deep-seated insecurities of which we may be entirely unconscious.

Despite social and cultural barriers to confidence, according to the artist, this quality is something to strive for because it is essential to self-fulfillment in contemporary life. For Min, art seems to present a path to self-confidence, both in the space it gives her to perform and explore confidence, and in the way it provides her with an alternate way of communicating that bypasses barriers of language and culture. As she explains, “making art made me confident, made me a part of society. Art has provided me a way to express myself and be heard in this society. Without art I would be no one, but just a visible minority.”

Jihee Min’s performance piece “I is for Confidence” consists of a “confidence helmet” worn by the artist as she walks around the exhibition space. As reflected in the video, the piece consists of ten colourful lower-case alphabet letters that spell the word “confidence”; these are attached by long chains to the top of a leather aviator-style helmet. During the performance, Min encourages attendees to interact with the confidence helmet by donning the apparatus and experiencing for themselves the sensation of moving around the space while wearing the helmet. In three scheduled photo shoots during the CAFKA biennial, Min captured images of audience members’ moments with the confidence helmet.

Born in Korea, Min’s family moved to Montreal when she was 12 years old. She completed a BFA at Ontario College of Art & Design in 2005. Shortly after graduation, she obtained an artist residency at the Banff Centre. In 2008, Min graduated from the MFA in Studio Art program at Concordia University where she received the Concordia MFA Studio Arts Award. Min currently resides in Montreal.

According to Min’s website, her work “deals with the notion of displacement and cultural intersections… With various mediums such as video projection, holograms, and her body, Jihee Min’s inter-disciplinary works project a voice that talks about culture and identity.”